All the Countries Trump's War Cabinet Has Wanted to Attack
(There's a lot of them.)
In 2013, before it became uncouth to criticize Saint John McCain, Mother Jones published a map of all the countries McCain wanted to attack. The final count was 15 — merely twice as many as the United States had bombed that year, but still enough to account for more than a quarter of the world’s population. One unlikely fan of the map was Senator Rand Paul, who remarked: “If we put active troops and got involved in combat where McCain wants us to be, they put a little angry McCain on the globe, on the map. It’s virtually everywhere.”
Donald Trump says he’s no fan of John McCain. (Apparently, he prefers people who weren’t captured.) During a press conference in 2020, Trump said that he “never got along with John McCain” because he “disagreed with [McCain’s] views on these ridiculous, endless wars.” (Put aside that Trump endorsed McCain in the 2008 presidential election.)
Over the last few weeks of the 2024 campaign, Trump repudiated McCain and his family, along with fellow war hawks Dick and Liz Cheney, and attempted to contrast himself from Kamala Harris as the antiwar candidate.
For anyone who paid attention during Trump’s first administration, that was laughable at the time. And ever since Trump won the election, it’s become increasingly difficult to pretend he represents a break from Republican foreign policy orthodoxy.
Trump’s choice for national security advisor — Congressman Mike Waltz — served as a counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Cheney. His nominee for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, retained neoconservatives Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams, Eliot Cohen, and Max Boot as foreign policy advisors during his 2016 presidential campaign and borrowed his campaign slogan, “A New American Century,” from the pro-Iraq war think tank primarily responsible for the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policy: the Project for the New American Century. Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, once ran the largest pro-war veterans organization in the United States, Vets for Freedom.
Over their two decades in the public light, Waltz, Rubio, and Hegseth have called for the United States to attack at least 15 countries. Here’s a brief overview of where they’ve advocated for raising hostilities.
Afghanistan
Official: Mike Waltz, incoming national security advisor.
Fighting words: “We need a long-term strategy that discredits the ideology of Islamic extremism. […] We are in a multi-decade war and we are only 15-years in.”
What he wanted: A generations-long ground war framed as a civilizational battle between good and evil.
What happened: A generation-long ground war framed as a nation-building effort.
Angry MAGAs: Three.
China
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “The threat that will define this century is China. And we will need a whole-of-society — not just government — effort to match them.”
What he wanted: A new Cold War.
What happened: Sanctions.
Angry MAGAs: Three.
Cuba
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “The illegitimate Cuban regime has made Cuba a safe haven for Communist China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. This poses a direct threat, just 90 miles from our shores, to our national security interests, and the stability of our region. The United States must continue to defend democracy and defend the rights of the Cuban people.”
What he wanted: Regime change.
What happened: Sanctions.
Angry MAGAs: Four.
Iran
Official: Pete Hegseth, incoming secretary of defense.
Fighting words: “What better time than now to say, we’re starting the clock, you’ve got a week, you’ve got X amount of time before we start taking out your energy production facilities. We take out key infrastructure. We take out your missile sites. We take out nuclear developments. […] We take out port capabilities. Or, you know what, take out a Quds headquarters while you’re at it, if you want.”
What he wanted: Airstrikes.
What happened: Sanctions.
Angry MAGAs: Five.
Iraq
Official: Pete Hegseth, incoming secretary of defense.
Fighting words: “America is fighting with a hand tied behind its back. Soldiers have all the equipment we need — armored Humvees, body armor for every body part, superior technology, etc. — but we simply do not have enough troops in Iraq, and we need them now.”
What he wanted: Troop surge.
What happened: See above.
Angry MAGAs: Three.
Libya
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “The strategic reality is that our nation is now engaged in a fight. It will either end in the demise of a brutal anti-American dictator, or in his victory over us and our allies. The latter would be an extremely harmful outcome for the U.S.”
What he wanted: Airstrikes culminating in regime change.
What happened: See above.
Angry MAGAs: Four.
Mexico
Official: Mike Waltz, incoming national security advisor.
Fighting words: “It’s time to go on offense. […] An [authorization for the use of military force] would give the President sophisticated military cyber, intelligence, and surveillance resources to disrupt cartel operations that are endangering Americans.”
What he wanted: Unspecified military action against drug cartels.
What happened: Nothing.
Angry MAGAs: Three.
North Korea
Official: Pete Hegseth, incoming secretary of defense.
Fighting words: “There’s merit in a preemptive strike. But you got to do it right. You got to — it’s got to be decisive.”1
What he wanted: Military action.
What happened: Sanctions.
Angry MAGAs: Two.
Palestine
Official: Mike Waltz, incoming national security advisor.
Fighting words: “[T]he more civilians that die at the hand of this fight […] you’re going to see the UN, the antisemites and the UN start to chirp in, you’re going to see the European leaders get weak-kneed and eventually, at the end of the day, we can’t lose sight of who’s calling the shots here, it’s 100% Iran.”
What he wanted: Indiscriminate airstrikes.
What happened: See above.
Angry MAGAs: Five.
Russia
Official: Mike Waltz, incoming national security advisor.
Fighting words: “[T]he Biden administration should make clear that Putin will be treated as an enemy of the international community and his grip on power will no longer be recognized. This should include trying him as a war criminal in international courts, seeking to expel Russia from the United Nations, and implementing a fully enforced economic boycott of Russia.”
More fighting words: “President Biden should personally state clearly that all options are on the table, including U.S. intervention, if Russia uses WMDs in Ukraine. And he must make Putin believe he will make good on his word.”
What he wanted: A proxy war and diplomatic and economic isolation culminating in regime change.
What happened: A proxy war and diplomatic and economic isolation.
Angry MAGAs: Five.
Syria
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “If you are going to have a no-fly zone, it has to be against anyone who would dare intrude on it. And I am confident that the United States Air Force can enforce that, including against the Russians.”
More fighting words: “First of all, [President Bashar al-Assad] has to be removed from power through a combination of alternatives on the ground that are Syrians, not foreign fighters or foreign forces.”
What he wanted: Support for anti-government rebels and a no-fly zone, culminating in regime change.
What happened: Support for anti-government rebels.
Angry MAGAs: Four.
The Hague
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “The [International Criminal Court’s] decision to authorize an investigation, and attempt to prosecute American service members in an international court to which the United States has declined to formally join, is unacceptable and a clear affront to United States sovereignty.”
What he wanted: Sanctions.
What happened: See above.
Angry MAGAs: One.
United States
Official: Pete Hegseth, incoming secretary of defense.
Fighting words: “Busy killing Islamists in shithole countries — and then betrayed by our leaders — our warriors have every reason to let America’s dynasty fade away. Leftists stole a lot from us, but we won’t let them take this. Time for round two — we won’t miss this war.”
More fighting words: “America today is in a cold civil war. Our soul is under attack by a confederacy of radicals. They wish to erode our institutions by making us question our purpose. They seek to make us believe that everything we have is somehow taken from other people’s efforts, other people’s possessions.”
What he wanted: Culture war.
What happened: See above.
Angry MAGAs: Five.
Venezuela
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “I believe that the Armed Forces of the United States are only used in the event of a threat to national security. I believe that there is a very strong argument that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the Maduro regime has become a threat to the region and even to the United States.”
More fighting words: Tweeted a picture of the mutilated corpse of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in an apparent death threat to President Nicolás Maduro.
What he wanted: Unspecified military action culminating in regime change.
What happened: Sanctions.
Angry MAGAs: Five.
Yemen
Official: Marco Rubio, incoming secretary of state.
Fighting words: “[I]nstead of authorizing strikes against Houthis leaders and weapons depots, the president has authorized strikes only on reportedly empty warehouses and ‘drone launching sites.’”
What he wanted: Super-duper airstrikes.
What happened: Airstrikes.
Angry MAGAs: Two.
While Hegseth uses the term “preemptive strike” — which refers to military action intended to repel imminent action by the enemy — in context he appears to be referring to preventive action, or a strike intended to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear capabilities regardless of whether an attack is imminent.